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The Adventures

of a Gir l Cal led B ICYCLE

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The Adventures


Christina Uss

Margaret Ferguson Books

Ho l i day House . New York

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Margaret Ferguson Books

Copyright © 2018 by Christina Uss

Map art copyright © 2018 by Jonathan Bean

All rights reserved

HOLIDAY HOUSE is registered in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Offi ce.

Printed and Bound in March 2018 at Maple Press, York, PA USA

First Edition

1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Uss, Christina, author.

Title: The adventures of a girl called Bicycle / Christina Uss.

Description: First edition. | New York : Margaret Ferguson Books, Holiday

House, [2018] | Summary: Left at the Mostly Silent Monastery as a toddler

and home-schooled by a retired nun, twelve-year-old Bicycle rides

cross-country to meet a famous cyclist who she hopes will be her fi rst friend.

Identifi ers: LCCN 2017028847 | ISBN 9780823440078 (hardcover)

Subjects: | CYAC: Bicycles and bicycling—Fiction. | Voyages and

travels—Fiction. | Friendship—Fiction. | Nuns—Fiction.

Monasteries—Fiction. | Foundlings—Fiction.

Classifi cation: LCC PZ7.1.U98 Adv 2018 | DDC [Fic]—dc23 LC

record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017028847

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To Jack and Susannah, who cheer me on

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CO N T EN T S

The Mostly Silent Monastery 3

Clunk 12

The Friendship Factory 24

Mr. Spim’s Splendid Sponges 38

Unfi nished Business in Virginia 43

Nine Hundred Cows and Counting 51

The Wayward Dogs of Kentucky 66

The Cannibal Takes Off 76

Slowing Down for a Bite in Illinois 85

Pigs on Parade in Missouri 100

Paradise Pies 114

A Bicycle without Wheels 125

Midway to Nowhere 142

The Wheels of Fortune Spin in Kansas 158

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On Top of the World in Colorado 175

To Catch a Thief in Utah 187

No Override for the Missile Launch 204

The Loneliest Road 216

The Best of Luck in Nevada 231

Calamity 241

Say Something Nice in California 254

The Blessing of the Bicycles 271

No Zebras, No Noses 285

Author’s Note 305

Acknowledgments 307

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The Adventures


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3

THE MOSTLY S I LENT MONASTERY

The front door to the Mostly Silent Monastery was missing.

Sister Wanda Magdalena walked up the front steps

and started to reach for the doorknob that wasn’t there. She

stopped, pursed her lips, and put her doorknob-reaching

hand on her hip. Examining the wide door frame, she saw

three stainless-steel hinges attached to nothing. Luckily,

Sister Wanda had chosen to retire years ago from being a

Nearly Silent Nun. She could use her voice to say anything

she wanted to, and she had something to say right now.

“Big Al!” she yelled. “Where are you? Please hang the

front door immediately! This place can’t be mostly silent

without a door to keep out the noise!”

When Big Al, the construction worker in charge of fi n-

ishing the brand-new building, didn’t answer or appear, Sis-

ter Wanda sighed. Move-in day for the Mostly Silent Monks

at 65 Monastery Lane in Washington, D.C., had offi cially


4

happened yesterday, but the building still had a lot of odds

and ends that were not quite right. Some of the light switches

didn’t switch. The hot-water faucets squeaked. And the

pesky front door had needed to be taken down and rehung

in order to close properly. Sister Wanda never settled for not-

quite-right and had presented Big Al with a list of problems

and strict instructions that every item on it would need to

be completed and shipshape by six o’clock today— or else. It

looked as though one of the workers had gotten as far as tak-

ing the door down but not as far as putting it back up.

Sister Wanda went into the front hallway, zigzagging

around heaps of empty cardboard boxes. She could see the

door leaning against a wall with its shiny new nameplate

MOSTLY SILENT MONASTERY— OPEN TO THE PUBLIC. A little

girl crouched next to it. Her scruffy black hair stuck up every

which way. She was dressed in a faded pink T-shirt deco-

rated with a drawing of a bike and the word BICYCLE printed

in block letters. She blinked up at Sister Wanda and clutched

the bottom of the shirt, which was two sizes too large.

“Goodness me, leave the front door off its hinges and

look what fi nds its way inside!” Sister Wanda said, wading

through the boxes. “Come with me,” she ordered, taking the

girl’s hand and guiding her toward the offi ce.

Sister Wanda and the little girl sat on opposite sides of

Sister Wanda’s big desk. “All right, my child,” the nun said,

pulling out a yellow pad and a sharp pencil. Sister Wanda


5

had plenty of yellow pads and sharp pencils. Since all the

monks of the monastery had vowed to be Mostly Silent,

the monastery had hired Sister Wanda when she retired to

do the sorts of things that require a lot more talking than

silence, like answering phones, making sure deliveries

got where they were supposed to go, scheduling washing-

machine repairmen, and supervising the construction of the

new monastery building. She was the kind of person who

relished getting a job done, and she rarely missed her days

of following the Nearly Silent Nuns’ vows. But she did con-

tinue wearing the Nearly Silent Nuns’ black robe because she

found it to be nicely intimidating to those who questioned

her authority. The plain black garment resembled a tradi-

tional nun’s habit, although the Nearly Silent order had never

bothered with any elaborate head coverings and simply went

without them.

“We need to fi gure out who you are and where you ought

to be. What can you tell me about yourself ? Name? Address?

How you came to be hiding in our hallway?” she said.

The girl didn’t say a word.

“Not talking, hmmm? Is that because you haven’t

learned how, or because you haven’t got anything to say?”

Sister Wanda peered into the girl’s face. “How many years

old are you? This many?” Sister Wanda held up three fi n-

gers. The little girl just stared back. Sister Wanda leaned for-

ward in her chair, tapping the pencil against her short silver


6

hair. “Silent as can be. Well, you’ll fi t in perfectly around

here,” she said.

Big Al jogged into the offi ce. “Excuse me, Sister,” he said.

“Something slipped my mind with the long list of items you

gave me, but I’ve remembered now, and it’s quite import— ”

He broke off suddenly when he saw the girl in the pink shirt

sitting in Sister Wanda’s offi ce. “Oh, you’ve found her your-

self. Okay, then, I’m off to check on the light switches.”

“Big Al,” Sister Wanda said in her no-nonsense tone.

Big Al stopped in his tracks.

“What do you know about this little girl?” Sister Wanda

demanded, her frosty blue eyes fi xed on the workman.

“I’m sorry, Sister— I spotted her sitting on the front steps

at the same time the replacement faucets were delivered.

When I asked her why she was there, she wouldn’t answer.

Because you were very, very clear that things needed to be

‘shipshape by six o’clock or else’ and I didn’t want to fi nd out

what the ‘or else’ meant, I tucked her away safe and told her

to stay put until I could drop the faucets off upstairs and get

the boys started on replacing them.” Big Al looked sheepish.

“I guess I should have dropped her off fi rst.”

“Yes,” Sister Wanda agreed. “Now, details. Did you see

anyone nearby who may have left her?”

“I didn’t see anyone, Sister. But,” Big Al continued,

“there used to be a public lost-and-found offi ce on this very

spot before we built the monastery. Maybe someone thought


7

this was still a place to drop off lost items . . . and maybe lost

children.” He shrugged.

“That’s it?”

“Well, the faucets are done.”

“How about the front door?” Sister Wanda said.

Big Al raised his hands. “I’m on it.”

Another worker in the hallway shouted for him, asking

how to tell if light switches were installed upside down or

right side up.

Big Al rubbed his forehead. “Please excuse me,” he said

as he jogged off.

After that, Sister Wanda found she didn’t have much

to say, so the girl and the nun eyed each other in silence for

some time.

If you don’t live near a Mostly Silent Monastery, you may

wonder what they are. The Mostly Silent Monasteries are

part of an old and venerated order, founded centuries ago by

a monk named Bob. One day, Bob observed that the human

body is made with two ears but only one mouth. He felt this

meant that we humans are supposed to listen more than we

speak, and so he vowed to be Mostly Silent and dedicated his

life to listening to others.

Bob decided on being Mostly Silent because he knew if

he took vows of total silence he wouldn’t be able to call for

help in an emergency or politely agree if someone said it was


8

a nice day or ask for a sandwich, so he cut down his vocabu-

lary to what he called the Sacred Eight Words: “yes,” “no,”

“maybe,” “help,” “now,” “later,” “sleep,” and “sandwich.” It

turned out with eight words plus a few hand gestures, a per-

son can get across a lot of meaning.

People went to visit Bob if their friends or family didn’t

pay enough attention to them. Each person would talk as

much as he or she wanted while Bob listened. It seems very

simple, but it was brilliant, too— centuries ago, just like

today, people really liked to be listened to. Soon more monks

joined Bob in taking vows of Mostly Silence and dedicating

their lives to listening to others, and the order was begun.

Bob’s cousin Euphemia started a branch of Nearly Silent

Nunneries, which proved to be equally popular and were

staffed entirely by women who also used the Sacred Eight

Words. Eventually, there were Mostly Silent Monasteries

and Nearly Silent Nunneries in most U.S. states and around

the globe. They were open to the public, so anyone could

go to one any day of the week and talk about anything they

wanted, for as long as they wanted, and a monk or a nun

would sit there and listen, guaranteed.

Over the years, the Mostly and Nearly Silent orders had

debated adding some new words to the Sacred Eight Words,

but the debates hadn’t come to anything. One word the

monks and nuns had pondered was “Duck!” (A young monk


9

had proposed this new word after a painful incident with a

fl ying Frisbee.)

The Mostly Silent Monastery where Sister Wanda and

the little girl now sat had replaced a decrepit old building on

the other side of the city. In addition to public listening, this

new monastery also served as a home for monks-in-training.

Construction had taken longer than expected, so the monks

were ready to move in before the building was entirely ready

for them. That explained the cardboard boxes and the front

door in the hallway. It did not, however, explain why the little

girl was there, too.

Sister Wanda spent the rest of the day on the phone, call-

ing hospitals, police stations, schools, hotels, and even the

zoo, trying to fi gure out where this quiet child belonged.

No one knew who she was. No one appeared to be missing a

girl in a pink T-shirt. So Sister Wanda proposed to the Top

Monk and the older head monks that it would be best if the

girl stayed with them until someone showed up to claim her.

The Top Monk said, “Sandwich,” by which he meant,

“Of course, let’s make her feel right at home here.” (The Top

Monk was the oldest and most silent of the monks, and had

managed to cut down his vocabulary to one word: sandwich.

It was amazing what he could communicate by saying “sand-

wich” with different infl ections in his voice.)

The other monks replied, “Yes,” and that was that.


10

During her fi rst evening at the monastery, the little girl

poked her head inside a cavernous room and saw rows upon

rows of monks of all sizes, shapes, and nationalities dressed

in pale blue robes, kneeling on square pillows, eyes closed.

This was an Advanced Listening class. Quiet as a piece of

cotton blowing across the fl oor, she padded into the room,

perched on a pillow, and closed her eyes as well. Despite the

fact that the monks were listening very intently, no one heard

her come in. She sat, still and peaceful, throughout the class.

When the monks fi nally opened their eyes, they goggled

at the little girl who had appeared in their midst without a

sound. The child broke the room’s stillness by giggling at

their pop-eyed expressions.

Over the next few days, Sister Wanda brought the little

girl with her while running errands around the neighbor-

hood, hoping someone would recognize her and know where

she belonged. Because the girl insisted upon always wearing

her pink T-shirt with the word BICYCLE on it, neighbors and

shopkeepers greeted her by asking, “And who is this young-

ster wearing a bicycle?”

The girl would either smile or stare, depending on how

friendly the asker’s voice sounded. On the third day, she

opened up her mouth and brightly repeated, “Bicycle!” to

every single question asked of her.

Sister Wanda had found that addressing her as “little

girl” was becoming tiresome, so right then and there she


11

began calling her Bicycle. Bicycle beamed so joyfully that the

name stuck.

Days became weeks. Bicycle gradually demonstrated a

limited vocabulary, but she still had no answers for who she

was and where she came from. The monks set up a tempo-

rary room for her on the second fl oor of the monastery.

Weeks became months. Sister Wanda fi nally called the

Top Monk into her offi ce to ask if she could sew Bicycle some

new clothes, hang pictures on her walls, and consider the girl

their responsibility.

“Not temporarily,” Sister Wanda insisted. “Perma-

nently. For better or worse, it seems she’s a part of the mon-

astery now.”

The Top Monk, of course, said, “Sandwich.”

“Sandwich!” A small voice seconded the Top Monk

from the doorway of Sister Wanda’s offi ce.

The monk turned, startled, but then smiled at Bicycle’s

I-gotcha-again face. She really seemed to enjoy sneaking up

on the older monks when she could, and her tiptoeing skills

were second to none.

“As I have said before, she’ll fi t in perfectly around here,”

said Sister Wanda.


12

CLUNK

Now that the Mostly Silent Monastery was her permanent

home, Bicycle took the Easy Listening class. She had her own

comfy pillow and knelt on it alongside the blue-robed monks,

listening without speaking for an hour a day. Sometimes the

class members practiced listening to visiting speakers or to

recordings of speeches. Sometimes they sat in complete quiet,

listening to things left unsaid and things that go without saying.

Sister Wanda broke out the monastery sewing machine

and whipped up some simple outfi ts for Bicycle to wear. Not

knowing the girl’s age bothered Sister Wanda, and when she

was sewing some new shirts for Bicycle, she hit upon the idea

of comparing the girl’s measurements with pattern sizes.

Bicycle was a perfect toddler’s size three, so Sister Wanda

went with her fi rst instinct and entered Bicycle’s age as three

in the monastery records. In a fi t of whimsy, she picked one

newly stitched green T-shirt and mimicked the girl’s original


13

pink top by ironing on the same pattern of a bike with the

word BICYCLE underneath. Bicycle’s enthusiastic squeals

convinced Sister Wanda to sew a new BICYCLE shirt in a new

color every year to celebrate her arrival at the monastery.

Two bike-decorated T-shirts later, at the age of fi ve, Bicy-

cle was ready to start kindergarten. Sister Wanda decided to

homeschool her. Sister Wanda had developed a great fond-

ness for the girl; plus she suspected she would excel at teach-

ing if given the chance. It also hadn’t escaped the retired nun’s

notice that whenever they walked past the neighborhood

public school, Bicycle pulled the neck of her T-shirt up to her

eyeballs and hid behind the nun’s robe, peeking anxiously at

the rowdy crowd of kids running through the playground.

Bicycle was especially bright, and she learned many

things under Sister Wanda’s tutelage. Once they’d cov-

ered the basics of letters, numbers, colors, and shapes, they

branched out into reading, arithmetic, and writing. Every

day, Sister Wanda wrote the Sacred Eight Words on the

blackboard and used “yes,” “no,” “maybe,” “help,” “now,”

“later,” “sleep,” and “sandwich” as the basis for many les-

sons. They spent months considering what defi nes a sand-

wich and comparing varieties of handheld foods around the

world. Discussing “now” versus “later” led them to work

on clocks and telling time. Bicycle excelled at playing word

games like jumbles and anagrams. She eagerly rearranged

the letters in the Sacred Eight Words to discover what other


14

words could be constructed from them, like SEW, PLEASE,

and the girl’s proudest discovery so far, MAYONNAISE.

Bicycle’s least favorite lessons were on manners and eti-

quette, but Sister Wanda insisted upon them.

One morning after a Scrabble session, Bicycle, now six

years old, asked, “When are the monks going to add ‘duck’

to the Sacred Eight Words list, Sister? Once they do that, I

can spell COLESLAW to go along with MAYONNAISE.”

After years of consideration, the word “duck” had still not

been approved.

“Change happens slowly in the Mostly Silent world,”

Sister Wanda said. “Probably because we have so few words

with which to discuss the possibility of change. But slow and

careful change is not a bad thing, in my opinion.”

Bicycle agreed. Each week was much like another to her,

and she had no complaints about that. Sister Wanda took

her on errands and museum outings. They were regulars at

the library and the park. At home at the monastery, Bicy-

cle chipped in with chores like sweeping and tidying, and

she helped the monks-in-training practice their skills by

pretending to be a visitor who had come to talk at a Mostly

Silent listening session. If she was feeling silly, she might also

throw out a question to the monk-in-training, like “If there

was a big spider on top of your head, would you want me to

tell you or not?” The monk-in-training would almost always

say, “Yes!” and then she’d answer, “Yes I should tell you, or


15

yes I should not tell you?” and then he’d end up saying, “No!

Maybe! Help!” until Bicycle burst out laughing and reassured

him she was just goofi ng around. Some monks bungled their

vows more than others— one young man had talked to her

for ten minutes straight about his fear of spiders— but since

they knew Bicycle would never report their infractions to any

of the head monks, they took her teasing in good spirits.

When Bicycle was seven, Sister Wanda designed a les-

son showing Bicycle how to translate the Sacred Eight

Words into fourteen different languages, including French,

Japanese, Urdu, Vietnamese, Swahili, and American Sign

Language. Although the nun got lesson plans from a home-

schooling website, she rarely consulted them. Sister Wanda,

as far as anyone could tell, knew everything.

“What have we learned from this?” she asked after the

words had been satisfactorily memorized and repeated.

(Sister Wanda loved asking “What have we learned from

this?” She believed every experience should be a learning

experience.)

“Um, people can be Mostly Silent in a lot of different

languages?” guessed Bicycle.

“Correct, but don’t say ‘um.’ That’s enough for today,”

said Sister Wanda, laying down the chalk.

Bicycle got up to leave the classroom.

Sister Wanda watched her walk toward the door. “Bicycle,

wait a moment,” she said. “Are you looking forward to tonight’s


16

showing of The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly?” A local movie

theater had donated an old projector and a few movie reels

to the monastery, and the monks had hung a sheet at one end

of the dining hall upon which to project the movies. The monks

adored the actor Clint Eastwood, whose tough-guy characters

usually spoke very little while communicating a whole lot.

Bicycle shook her head. “I was going to read tonight.”

Sister Wanda sighed inside. Bicycle was an excellent stu-

dent, very advanced for her age in learning and listening.

However, growing up in such a hushed place, she didn’t play

or run or shout, and didn’t have any friends her age to talk

to or laugh with. While Sister Wanda knew the monks were

very kind and took the time to listen to anything Bicycle had

to say, it was hard to become someone’s friend when you

could exchange no more than eight words with them. The

nun often wondered if she’d made a mistake by not send-

ing Bicycle to public school, but when she had suggested to

Bicycle last month that they could enroll her in school next

year, Bicycle had begged Sister Wanda to continue tutoring

her. She’d pulled out her perfect spelling tests and above-

grade math work, plus the awesome brand-new Sacred Eight

Words anagram CHAINSAWED, and then gazed at the

nun with a long, pitiful, silent look. Bicycle had advanced

to an Intermediate Listening class, which included Facial

Expression Control, and Sister Wanda had to admit that the

girl had some skills in this area.


17

Sister Wanda said, “Well, I know Brother Otto and a

few other monks are going to the market to buy popcorn and

candy in addition to groceries for dinner. Wouldn’t you like

to go with them?”

Bicycle also sighed inside. She was no dummy. She knew

Sister Wanda thought she needed to make some friends. The

retired nun had recently begun arranging playdates with

kids from the local schools and inviting children from a city

orphanage to visit the monastery. However, Bicycle couldn’t

stand these other children. None of them wanted to sit in

silence, and none of them knew how to listen. In fact, they all

talked— a lot. After four years surrounded by Mostly Silence,

Bicycle thought that being Mostly Silent was a pretty good

way to be. However, she knew Sister Wanda meant well.

“Sure, Sister, I’ll go,” Bicycle said. She always enjoyed

spending time with Brother Otto, who did the grocery shop-

ping for the monastery and loved food— choosing it, cooking

it, and especially eating it. With his round face, glasses, and

ready smile, he looked like the Dalai Lama might if the Dalai

Lama always took second helpings of dessert. It was a plea-

sure to go to the market with him and watch him pick out

some marbled sausage or a bushel of fresh, fuzzy kiwi fruit.

He often got so excited that he’d forget his vows for a short

time and start describing recipes in tasty detail.

“Excellent!” Sister Wanda said. “Make sure Brother

Otto gets a Snickers bar for me.”


18

Bicycle nodded, thinking of her own plans. After the

shopping trip and dinner, she’d head straight for the monas-

tery’s library. With everyone watching the movie, she could

read in undisturbed quiet for the entire evening.

That afternoon, Brother Otto beamed as he pushed his little

shopping cart down the sidewalk on the way home. He’d got-

ten a very good price on pork chops, and nothing made him

happier than getting a bargain on tasty food. Bicycle walked

beside the plump monk, followed by three young monks-

in-training who were toting bags of groceries. Brother Otto

hummed a happy little cooking song to himself, looking off

into space and imagining what side dishes he’d pair with the

chops.

They were passing the post offi ce when Brother Otto’s

shopping cart halted with a clank, blocked by something

metal that had fallen over on the sidewalk. Bicycle and the

other monks hurried forward to help and saw what blocked

their path. Underneath the spots of rust and clinging cob-

webs, the two-wheeled machine was glaringly, screamingly,

almost unbearably orange. A hand-lettered sign hung from a

piece of string: FOR SALE. SEE POSTMASTER.

“Ooooh!” Bicycle said.

“Well, that’s fate!” Brother Otto said. Then his eyes went

wide with dismay and he clapped a hand over his mouth.

Brother Otto simply wasn’t cut out to be Mostly Silent.


19

“Is that what I think it is?” asked Bicycle.

Brother Otto looked torn for a moment, then seemed to

think, I’ve already broken my vows today, so a few more words

can’t hurt. “Yes, my little cabbage, that is your namesake. It’s

a bicycle.”

The three monks-in-training shushed him with disap-

proving looks.

Naturally, it was love at fi rst sight.

“Brother Otto . . . do you think I can buy it?” Bicycle

reached into her pocket, pulling out eighty-nine cents.

Brother Otto glanced at the orange bike and then at Bicy-

cle’s face. With no further ado, he took her coins and went

into the post offi ce. He must have thrown caution to the wind

and completely ignored his Mostly Silent training to get such

a bargain, because he came back outside with a big smile and

said, “It’s all yours.”

It was of no surprise to anyone at the monastery when

Brother Otto brought Bicycle home with the orange bike.

With a name like Bicycle, the girl was bound to start pedal-

ing around sooner or later.

In fact, Sister Wanda was relieved to see the young girl

with the two-wheeler. She wrote child-size bike helmet on her

shopping list and said, “It’s high time she found an activity

that will get her out of the monastery and engaged with the

world. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: the girl needs to

make friends. Surely a bicycle will help her do that.”


20

The Top Monk said, “Sandwich.”

The cobwebby bike required some tender loving care.

Bicycle lost no time getting started. She found a thick bicycle

repair manual in the library and wheeled the bike into the

monastery’s small garage. She spent the rest of the afternoon

dismantling the machine piece by piece, barely looking up

when Sister Wanda dropped off a plain black helmet with an

admonishment to wear it whenever pedaling.

“Crankshaft, bottom bracket, pedal, rear de-rail-leur,”

Bicycle read aloud from the book, picking up each rusty,

fi ddly-shaped bit and turning it over and over in her hands.

While the monks were watching the Clint Eastwood movie

that evening, she scrubbed every nook and cranny with an

old toothbrush, greased the parts that needed greasing, and

reassembled the bike. By anyone’s standards, the bike was

not a pretty thing. It was a dense, heavy, clunky lump of steel.

It was quite old, and had clearly been ridden many miles, but

it was fundamentally sound and ready to ride with its new

owner. It was a smidge too big for her, but if she stretched,

she could reach the pedals. Bicycle hugged her bicycle. She

named it Clunk.

For the next fi ve years, Bicycle cycled every moment she

could. She rode beside Brother Otto to the market every day.

She rode around the block so many times she nearly wore a

groove into the road. She slept with Clunk next to her bed,


21

and occasionally she thunked down the wide staircase to

breakfast on the bike. (Sister Wanda threatened to throw

Clunk in the trash heap when Bicycle did this, so she rode

down the staircase only when she was sure Sister Wanda was

busy on the other side of the monastery.)

The theater that had donated the movie projector to the

monastery had also donated several black-and-white fi lms

about famous bicycle races. Bicycle watched those fi lms

over and over, shouting encouragement to the racers on the

screen. Most of the races took place in Europe, and Bicycle

was fascinated with the wire-thin men on their elegant, nim-

ble bikes, whizzing together through historic towns, strug-

gling up mountains, riding in huge jostling packs usually

without crashing into one another.

Bicycle’s shouting at the movie screen attracted the

attention of the Top Monk. He liked to watch Bicycle while

she watched the screen, and to listen to her shouts of encour-

agement. He seemed to hear something special in her voice,

because he was sometimes inspired to shout “Sandwich!”

himself. He gave Bicycle a gift subscription to a popular

bicycling magazine. She read each issue cover to cover, and

in this way learned about the famous bike racers of the world.

The most famous, and Bicycle’s favorite, was young

Zbigniew Sienkiewicz. He was a tall and lanky nineteen-

year-old racer from Poland with a blond mustache. He had

won every major race in the world as a rookie, and he always


22

sprinted across the fi nish line with a grin on his face, wav-

ing with wild enthusiasm to his cheering fans. “Dziekuje,

Dziekuje!” he would shout, which means “Thank you!” in

Polish. Polish, you should know, is not the easiest language

in the world to pronounce and understand. For example,

although Dziekuje looks like a sneeze when you write it down,

it actually sounds like “Jen-COO-ya.” Because Polish was so

tricky, none of the racing announcers could pronounce Zbig-

niew Sienkiewicz’s name correctly (it sounded kind of like

ZBIG-nyev Shen-KEV-itch), so everyone called him Zbig.

Zbig was Bicycle’s hero. She rearranged the letters in

his fi rst name to spell E-Z BIG WIN and found the words

NICE and WISE in his last name. She started dreaming

about winning the Tour de France and the Giro d’Ita-

lia and other famous bike races like Zbig did, riding her

bike for hundreds of miles with a grin on her face, waving

wildly to her own cheering fans. She thought her dream

wasn’t too far-fetched. She knew she was growing up to be

tall and lanky just like Zbig— after all, she’d had to raise

Clunk’s seat post every time she had a growth spurt, and

now that she was twelve years old, it was as high as it could

go.

While Bicycle’s dreams of winning international races

grew more vivid, Sister Wanda’s dreams of Bicycle making

lots of new pals while biking around the neighborhood did


23

not. In fact, riding Clunk seemed to have separated her even

more from other children.

Part of the problem was that Bicycle was a very fast

cyclist. If someone tried to start a conversation with her, she

started pedaling hard and left them in her dust. Now when

Sister Wanda set up playdates with local girls and boys, Bicy-

cle hopped on Clunk and headed outside, passing the chil-

dren in a fl ash of fl ying hair and spinning spokes, pretending

she couldn’t hear Sister Wanda telling her to come back and

meet Betsy or Billy or Jenny or Frankie. Bicycle didn’t want

to meet them. She just wanted to ride Clunk and be left alone

in peace and quiet.


24

THE FR IENDSH IP FACTORY

One unlucky Saturday morning, Bicycle heard the sound of

a gaggle of girls coming in the front door and being ushered

toward the main hall. Clearly, Sister Wanda was going to try

another one of her friend-making get-togethers.

Bicycle hopped out of bed, threw on some clothes and

shoes, and decided that if she was quick, she could ride

Clunk down the staircase and out the side door near the

kitchen before Sister Wanda could see her. She pedaled into

the hallway and started down the staircase, but on the mid-

dle stair, she felt Clunk’s heavy frame drop out from under

her with a terrifying crash. The world went sideways and bits

of wood fl ew everywhere.

“Help!” she screamed.

Every monk in the monastery came running.

Brother Otto pulled Bicycle out of the ruin of the staircase,

poking and prodding at her arms and legs, pulling back her


25

eyelids, and peering into her ears. “Are you hurt? Are you bro-

ken?” he asked in agitation. Then he clapped a hand over his

mouth as the other monks gave him the Mostly Silent Shush.

“I’m . . . okay . . . I guess.” Bicycle was a little scratched

and banged up, but no permanent damage was done to her.

Amazingly, Clunk also came out of the pile of wood and

dust with nothing more than a few scratches in the orange

paint and a handful of loose screws. But the staircase? The

staircase was toast.

Sister Wanda was a dark thundercloud moving toward

Bicycle. Holding Bicycle by the chin, she asked in a danger-

ously soft voice, “What have we learned from this?”

“Uh . . . I will not ride my bike down the stairs ever

again?”

Sister Wanda repeated after her, “You. Will. Not. Ride.

Your. Bike. Down. The. Stairs. Ever. Again.”

Bicycle nodded, chagrined.

Sister Wanda’s eyes fl ashed like blue lightning. “Brother

Jianyu!” she called. Brother Jianyu was the carpenter of the

house. “You will go to town and buy wood to repair these

stairs right now, and when you return, you will have this

one”— she gave Bicycle’s chin a shake that rattled the teeth in

her head— “help you for as long as it takes to fi x this.”

This was the fi rst time Bicycle had ever gotten into seri-

ous trouble with Sister Wanda. She meekly went to meet the

giggling girls in the main hall. She pretended with all her


26

might to enjoy their company until Brother Jianyu came and

set her to work yanking nails out of broken pieces of wood

with a claw hammer.

A few weeks later, Sister Wanda took Bicycle out for her

annual haircut at the barbershop. Bicycle rode on Clunk, and

Sister Wanda jogged to keep up. They were passing a travel

agency when a large poster with curly lettering caught Bicy-

cle’s eye. She pedaled over to take a look and almost banged

into the side of the building. The poster announced:

ZBIGNIEW “ZBIG” SIENKIEWICZ TO

VISIT AMERICA!

His First-Ever Visit to the United States!!

Zbig Will Host the Blessing of the Bicycles

in San Francisco, California, on July 8

All bicycles are welcome to be blessed for safe, fast riding.

Zbig will choose one Lucky Cyclist at the event to tour the

country with him.

* A Once-in-a-Lifetime Ride!*

*Reserve your plane ticket TODAY!*

There was a black-and-white drawing of Zbig at the bottom

of the poster. His arms were raised in his signature wave.


27

“Sister!” Bicycle exclaimed, and made some unintelligi-

ble gargling noises. She had so much to say, the words caught

together in a jumbled rush in her throat. Sister Wanda jogged

up and read the poster for herself.

“Yes, yes, I know you’re a big fan of this Zbig fellow.”

Sister Wanda paused. For the fi rst time in Bicycle’s life, the

indomitable Sister looked dismayed. “I’d like to say we could

afford tickets to California. However, we used up the monas-

tery’s savings to fi x the broken staircase.”

Bicycle gulped.

“I’m sorry. I know you didn’t intend to vaporize the stair-

case, but you will not be attending that event.” Sister Wanda

started toward the barbershop.

Bicycle followed behind, slowly pushing Clunk, dumb-

struck by the bad luck she’d brought on herself. “You’re sure,

Sister? There’s no extra money at all?” Bicycle pleaded.

Sister Wanda pressed her lips together. “Well, there is

the emergency fund. And I do have a little reserve of money,”

she said.

Bicycle felt hope leap up inside her.

Then Sister Wanda continued. “I was going to tell you

this next week, but I’ve been saving up to send you to sleep-

away camp at the Friendship Factory.”

Bicycle’s hope crashed back down and went splat.

“Now, I know you’d rather go see this Zbig bicycle racer

person, but you have to understand.” Sister Wanda had that


28

no-nonsense look. “You simply can’t go on this way, refusing

the possibility of friendship. Since you don’t seem to be able

to fi nd any friends here, it’s time to do something more dras-

tic. The Friendship Factory is a very successful place. They

have facilities across the country. There’s one right outside

D.C., and they say in their ads ‘Three Guaranteed Friend-

ships or Your Money Back.’ I signed you up for their Spring

Break Special, which certifi es if the spring session isn’t effec-

tive enough, you will automatically be enrolled into their six-

week summer intensive.” Sister Wanda’s expression softened

slightly. “Please believe me,” she said. “I’m doing this for your

own good. Someday you will look back on this and thank me.”

Bicycle was dazed throughout her haircut and the

ride home. Not only could she not meet her bike-racing

hero on his trip to the United States, but she was going to

be condemned to this dreadful-sounding Friendship Fac-

tory. She’d probably be trapped in some drafty cabin in the

woods, forced to make friends with annoying children, and

boring children, and maybe even some children who were

both annoying and boring at the same time. And if it didn’t

go well, she’d end up back there for practically the whole

summer. Three guaranteed friendships or your money back?

It sounded like a guaranteed nightmare.

She was in a funk for days. She sent a long, pleading letter

to Zbig, asking if he might be able to change his visit from

San Francisco, California, to Washington, D.C., preferably


29

someplace near the monastery. She also talked to the monks

about her problem, and they listened with great patience and

attentiveness. However, listening was not enough for Bicy-

cle this time. She wanted someone to talk to her and say,

“Wow, that’s terribly unfair,” and “I’ll fi nd a way to make

Sister Wanda see reason,” and “You don’t need to make

friends; you need to go see Zbig Sienkiewicz and maybe win

a cross-country bike trip.” Instead, they said, “Yes,” and

“Sandwich?” This was very unsatisfying. Bicycle moped.

In mid-April, a week before the Friendship Factory bus

was scheduled to arrive, a big envelope with a Poland post-

mark arrived. The return address was from ZBIG S. ENTER-

PRISES. A reply to her letter! She held her breath as she slit

it open. Inside, there was a photo of Zbig crossing some

anonymous fi nish line on his bike, hands up in the air, smil-

ing at the camera. Scrawled on it in thick black marker were

the words Keep riding! and it was signed Your Friend, Zbig

Sienkiewicz. Bicycle stared at it. As she did, an idea began

to form. Once the idea formed, it grew wheels and starting

spinning through her mind.

A sunny Saturday morning in April was something Bicycle

usually savored. But her pale face showed no savoring when

the big yellow Friendship Factory bus pulled up to the mon-

astery. She clutched her bulky backpack to her chest while

the driver got out and helped Sister Wanda attach Clunk to


30

the luggage rack on the rear of the bus. Bicycle had insisted

that the only way she could stand to go to this loathsome

camp was if she could bring her bike with her, and Sister

Wanda had fi nally given in.

Sister Wanda gave her a hug and a going-away present,

a book titled Wheel Wisdom: Great Thoughts from Great

Cyclists. “You probably won’t even get a chance to read this

until you return, you’ll be so busy having fun with your new

friends.”

Bicycle didn’t trust herself to talk, so she nodded silently.

She squatted down to unzip her backpack and slide the

paperback book inside.

As Bicycle stood back up, Sister Wanda continued, “I

know you aren’t completely sure about this, child, but I’m

sure enough for both of us. Think of what you will learn

from this experience.”

Brother Otto was also there to see her off and he gave

her his most sympathetic smile and a brown bag fi lled with

snacks for the trip. When he leaned in for a hug, he whis-

pered, “Good luck.”

Bicycle nodded again.

The bus was already fi lled with naughty little boys

throwing spit-soaked wads of paper at one another’s heads

and nasty little girls making fun of one another’s shoes.

These were the children who couldn’t, or wouldn’t, or even


31

perhaps shouldn’t make friends without a camp to force

them to do so.

Bicycle sat down in the one available seat, her backpack

in her lap with her helmet clipped onto a side strap. The boy

next to her was wearing a T-shirt that said BE GLAD I’M NOT

YOUR KID. He stuck a moist wad of paper in her hair.

The girl across the aisle looked down at Bicycle’s sneak-

ers and squeaked, “Ewwww, those shoes have no sparkle!”

Bicycle tried to ignore them, but it was diffi cult.

The bus pulled away from the curb. Sister Wanda and

Brother Otto waved good-bye until it was out of sight. “She’ll

thank me someday,” Sister Wanda declared. “I hope,” she

added under her breath.

The bus trundled through the traffi c-clogged streets. After

a few minutes, Bicycle got up and approached the driver.

“Excuse me, sir, but could we stop? I really need to use a

bathroom.”

“Awww, why dincha go before we left?” the driver asked.

“We have to stay on schedule, ya know.”

“I’m sorry, but I really need to go,” she replied, shifting

from one foot to another.

Another girl overheard her and chimed in, “Yeah, I need

to go, too.” Then a chorus of voices started in the back of the

bus. “Stop the bus! We need to go!”


32

The bus driver grumbled, “Kids!” but he pulled over at

the next gas station. “Make it quick!” he yelled.

Bicycle grabbed her backpack and ran off the bus, but

she didn’t head for the bathrooms with the rest of the boys

and girls. She went to the back of the bus and had Clunk

free from the luggage rack in no time. Before anyone noticed

what she was doing, she’d attached her backpack to Clunk’s

rack with a bungee cord, stuck her helmet on her head, and

started pedaling away in the opposite direction of the bus

and the Friendship Factory.

Early that evening, one of the monks went in to tidy up Bicy-

cle’s room. He found a note under the pillow when he was

making the bed. After he read it, he brought it straight to Sis-

ter Wanda in the kitchen, where she and Brother Otto were

baking oatmeal cookies.

Sister Wanda read the note once, then twice, and fell

back into one of the kitchen chairs. “Silent Saints preserve us

all, especially this little girl!”

Dear Sister Wanda,

I figure you will be hearing from the camp prest y soon

that I never showed up, so I wanted to tell you not

to worry. I know it’s important to you that I make a

friend. Maybe you are right. But the Friendship Fac-


33

tory is not the place I’m going to find one. There is

only one friend that I want to make, and that is Zbig

Sienkiewicz. Clunk and I are going to California to

find him. I’ll send you postcards along the way to let

you know I’m okay.

Bicycle

Sister Wanda sat staring at Bicycle’s note without seeing

it, lost in thought. “She doesn’t want to make friends with

any of the nice children I bring to meet her, but now she

wants to take off for California to meet this mustache-faced

bike racer!” Then she demanded of the oatmeal box in frus-

tration, “How does that foolish child expect to get across the

country by herself ?”

The Top Monk walked into the kitchen and read Bicy-

cle’s note over her shoulder. He squinted in thought. “Sand-

wich,” he fi nally said.

Sister Wanda turned around to face him. “If you’re

saying we need to send the police after her, I think that will

push her to do something even more foolish. No, no, she’s

going to come to her senses.” She rubbed her eyes with both

hands. “Don’t a lot of children try running away from home

at one point or another? They eventually cool off and come

back, ready to make amends.” She exhaled slowly. “She’s a

smart girl. She’ll soon realize that bicycling across the country


34

isn’t something a person just up and does. I bet she’ll be home

later tonight.”

“Sandwich,” the Top Monk said again.

This time, Sister Wanda wasn’t the least bit sure what he

meant.

Bicycle didn’t feel foolish. She had thought and thought

about ways to get out of spending spring break at the Friend-

ship Factory. But it wasn’t until she’d gotten the photo from

Zbig signed Your Friend, Zbig Sienkiewicz that it hit her:

all that really mattered to Sister Wanda was that she make

a friend, right? It shouldn’t matter if she made a friend at

the Friendship Factory or somewhere else— like California.

And she had a perfect way to get there: Clunk would take her

across the country.

She’d studied U.S. geography last year with Sister

Wanda, so she knew how many states lay between her and

California. After staring at the picture of Zbig for a while,

pondering the best way to get from the East Coast to the

West Coast, she’d headed to the public library to make her

own cross-country cycling map. She went to the reference

section, took a pile of atlases to a table, and spent a long

afternoon with a ruler and a calculator and the photocopy

machine.

Sister Wanda’s rigorous instruction on how to read a map

legend paid off. Bicycle knew that the thickest, straightest


35

lines on the atlas maps were the interstate highways, where

cars would roar by at high speeds and no bicyclists were

allowed. Instead, she looked for the skinniest lines, the ones

that meandered a more indirect way across each state— the

local byways marked CR for “country route” or RR for “rural

road.” A few states even had trails designed solely for bicy-

cles and pedestrians. She traced those routes in green high-

lighter across each photocopy and stapled them into a thick

packet. Adding up the mileage for each state, Bicycle fi gured

she had to ride almost four thousand miles to get to Califor-

nia. She needed to be there on July 8. That meant she’d need

to average about fi fty miles a day. How hard could that be?

she asked herself. Zbig and those other racers ride over a hun-

dred miles every day for weeks on end. Fifty miles should be a

piece of cake.

When Sister Wanda told her that she needed to pack

for camp, Bicycle had instead secretly packed supplies for a

long-distance bike trip. She raided the kitchen pantry and

put bags of crackers, dried fruits, chocolate, cereal, and beef

jerky in a pile. She folded her favorite T-shirts, leggings, and

shorts; rolled up an old wool blanket; found a washcloth and

soap so she could wash herself and her clothes on the go; and

added a toothbrush and toothpaste, a fl ashlight, a penknife,

bungee cords, some postcard stamps, and a tiny yellow spi-

ral notebook with several pens to her pile. From the monas-

tery’s library, she’d taken a pocket waterproof Polish-English


36

dictionary so she could talk to Zbig in his native language

when they met. Her photocopied maps fi t nicely inside a

gallon-sized Ziplock plastic bag, along with a roll of duct

tape to secure the map bag to her handlebars. She put her

saved-up allowance money, $154.20, into an envelope and

wrapped it in several layers of underwear. For Clunk, she

put in an Allen wrench set, chain lube, a bike pump, and a

tire repair kit. She covered the supplies with two extra-large

rain ponchos, planning to use the ponchos as a kind of make-

shift tent on the road, and crammed the whole wad into her

backpack. She leaned two water bottles against it to slide into

Clunk’s bottle cages. “Ready as I’ll ever be,” she judged.

The night before leaving, she went to bed and listened to

the clock in the hall chime midnight. Too tense to sleep, she

kept thinking about whether she ought to go through with

her plan.

I showed up at the monastery in a T-shirt labeled BICY-

CLE, didn’t I? Therefore, if I am going to make any friends in

life, they are probably going to be bicyclists. So why not start

out with the best bicyclist in the world as my fi rst friend? He’s

even got the word NICE in his last name. When it works out

perfectly and Zbig and I become great friends, Sister Wanda

won’t be angry. She’ll see why I did what I did.

Yet no matter how many times she went over this in her

mind, Bicycle wasn’t convinced that Sister Wanda wouldn’t

be angry forever after this. This was a big deal.


37

When she’d climbed on the Friendship Factory bus,

though, she knew she had to do it. Right or wrong, she

needed to get away from those . . . those . . . those kids.

Now she was on the road, moving as fast as she could.

It was too late to wonder if she’d done the right thing. She

focused instead on pedaling the fi rst mile of the four thou-

sand that lay ahead.


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